The Noise of Summer
by William Easley
Summary: Ah, summer break, when a fellow can avoid being taunted for awkwardness and ineptness at sports. Unless you're Dipper. Toward the end of the twins' second summer in Gravity Falls, baseball erupts. Maybe some sporting Wendip, who knows.
1. Chapter 1

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 1: Little Guys League**

"No," Dipper Pines said firmly. "There is no way. Uh-uh. Nope. Not gonna happen. I am O-U-T out. Forget about it. Nuh-uh. Did I say 'no'?" He hopped off the stool behind the counter and acted as if he were about to stalk out of the Mystery Shack gift shop.

"C'mon, you knucklehead," Grunkle Stan cajoled from where he stood near the eyeball jar. "It'll be fun!" The eyes all swiveled as though to see Dipper's reaction.

It was a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in Gravity Falls, and they were in the Mystery Shack gift shop during the lunchtime lull, so only Dipper, Stan, and Mabel were in on the conversation. Mabel kept dancing around and trying to break in with a comment, but the back-and-forth between great-uncle and great-nephew was too rapid-fire.

Already halfway to the doorway leading to the stairs up to the attic, Dipper stopped, turned, and waved his arms. " _Fun_? In the heat of August? Running around in the hot sun? Showing off how horrible I am at any sport? Having people laughing at me and calling me names? That by you is _fun_?"

"Aw, Dipper," Mabel said, grabbing the back of his vest and stopping him from making a dramatic exit before Stan could reply, "join up. Hey, our team just needs two more players. You an' me, brobro! I'll pitch, you catch. For the honor of the Mystery Shack! C'mon, it's just a three-week season!"

Dipper rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. "Mabel, you know how bad I am at these things! I'll look like a complete dork!"

"And how's that different from now?" Mabel asked. She snatched a pine-tree trucker's hat from the gift shop shelves, clapped it on her head, and staggered around, arms bent, putting on a goofy voice: "Duh! I'm Dipper! I'm always reading books about monsters and conspiracies! I'm scared I'll go up in smoke if the sunshine hits me! I can't be bothered to go outside unless I'm hunting a galleysnagger! I can't get up the energy to run unless some monstrous scaly creature's bitin' my butt!"

"Hah!" Grunkle Stan laughed, pointing. "She nailed ya, Dip!"

"That wasn't even close," Dipper grumbled. He tried a different tack: "Look, it's like ninety degrees outside today! And it'll be hotter over the next three weeks! You want us to play a baseball game every other day and get heatstroke and die? Is that what you want?"

"Jeeze," Stan said, his hands on his hips. "I didn't realize my great-nephew was such a _delicate_ little creature!" He raised his right hand and did a finger wiggle to emphasize "delicate."

"Trying to make me take that bait is _not_ gonna work," Dipper insisted. "Besides, I wouldn't do the team any good. I told you, I'm rotten at sports!"

Sounding more sisterly, Mabel said softly, "Aw, Dipper! That's just 'cause you always get chosen last and stuck out in right field. It's just 'cause you have yet to connect with a baseball when you swing a bat. But that's at school in Piedmont, where everybody's picked on you for years. Broseph, you've never tried here in Gravity Falls! Maybe the players here are more on your level. And you do all this amazing stuff when you hunt monsters! You can learn to hit a ball. It's not that hard. C'mon. Please? Do it for me?"

Dipper stuck out his jaw. "Look, I can say no just as long as you keep—"

The gift-shop door opened, and Dipper glanced around. Wendy had just come back from lunch break, the sleeves of her green-plaid shirt rolled up above her elbows. Because it was so hot outside, she'd left her trapper hat on the shelf beneath the register, and even so she glistened faintly with a fine dew of perspiration. "'Sup, dudes?" she asked cheerfully. "Thanks for coverin' for me, Dipper. Was it busy?"

But Mabel broke in before Dipper could answer: "Aw, Wendy, listen to this: Grunkle Stan's helping organize a Little Guys' League short-run baseball season, and Dipper won't even help."

Dipper went behind the counter and pulled the stool back and let Wendy reclaim her place. She hopped on the stool, then promptly leaned back and parked her logging boots on the counter next to the penny dish (empty; Stan had just cleaned it out) and the jar of complimentary peppermints that Soos had put there. Dipper turned toward Mabel. "Help? It's not _helping_ anybody," he said. "It's just _humiliating_ myself!"

"How's it gonna do that?" Wendy asked, putting her hands behind her head. "What's he want you to do, coach?"

"Play!" Stan snapped. "It's for kids eleven to thirteen, and Dipper just barely qualifies. I mean, end of the month, he turns fourteen! Lotsa families in the county are away on vacation right now, so we're runnin' short of players. We need eight teams, right? The Mystery Shack's only got seven players right now. Mabel says she'll play, but Doofus here refuses." His eyes got a crafty expression. "Say, Wendy, I don't s'pose you could pass for thirteen?"

"Come on, man," Wendy said, laughing. "No way I could get away with that! Everybody in town knows me. Hey, Dipper—what's your objection?"

Dipper shrugged miserably, his shoulders sagging. "I'm—I'm just no good." He looked down at his feet and self-consciously rubbed his left elbow with his right hand. Miserably, he admitted, "Can't hit, can't catch."

"You can run pretty good," Wendy pointed out. "And the other stuff comes with practice. I got pretty good playin' ball with my brothers in our backyard. Maybe I could give you some pointers."

"Aw, there's not enough time for me to learn, and I'm so uncoordinated. I'd feel like an idiot."

"As opposed to every other day," Mabel said.

Wendy said sweetly, "Lay off, Mabel. Dipper, man—it'll be fun if you'll give it a chance. Do it for me."

Dipper stared at her, losing himself in her eyes—today they were more green than hazel. Something inside him melted, and he said, "OK." But he was already thinking, _I know I'm gonna regret this._

"Yay!" Mabel yelled. "That's the Power of Love!"

"Mabel," Dipper said. "Please." He looked at Wendy for support. She smiled and raised her eyebrows instead, a warm and encouraging expression which gave him decidedly mixed feelings.

"OK," Grunkle Stan said, his grin broadening as he made a hand-washing gesture. "That's great, the Mystery Shack has its team now! I got your uniforms out in the Stanleymobile. The hats are the pine-tree ones, so you're set, Dipper, and Mabel, you can wear the one you just put on. Now you owe the Shack $9.99."

"Hey," Mabel protested, "you're charging me full price? I don't even get a niece-of-the-owners discount? What about all the things I _do_ around here, huh? Sweeping up, dusting, making sure the candy machine is stocked!"

"You eat half the candy before you get the machine loaded," Dipper pointed out.

Mabel made a _pfbbbbbt_ sound with her tongue. "That's another service—quality control! I do lots of things. Don't they count?"

"Right, right," Stan said. "Takin' all that into consideration, forget the $9.99. Make it an even fifteen bucks."

When Mabel wailed her protest, he laughed again and said, "Kiddin', Pumpkin, just kiddin'. The cap's on the house. Tell Soos to see me about it—I'm gonna need seven more, and he has to keep the inventory up."

"What are the other teams?" Wendy asked.

Stan began to count on his fingers. "Lemme see. There's the Agate Ridge Gobblewonkers—"

"Wait, wait," Dipper said. "Mabel and Soos and me proved that was a fake last year! Why'd they name themselves after a dumb robot?"

"Nah, Dip," Wendy said. "The Gobblewonker legend goes 'way, 'way back to the Native American tribes that used to live here, like, centuries ago. Old Man McGucket was just playin' off that old myth when he built his robot. Really, that team's been around for years, on an' off. I remember it from when I was in second and third grade, even. It kinda went into hibernation, though, three-four years back. We didn't even have a local kids' baseball season last year."

"Yeah," Stan said, "and that's a shame. Baseball's America's favorite pastime! That's why I'm bringin' back the Little Guys League. It's great exercise for kids, promotes teamwork and ambition, and there's a buck to be made. Pretend I didn't say that last one. Where was I? There's the Berford Possums, the Crooked Creek Dingoes, the Gravity Falls Velours—Mayor Tyler's coachin' that one—the Greenwoods Sequoyas, the Highland Sharks—who'm I forgettin'? Um. Oh, yeah, the Roadkill County Coyotes, an' us. We figure three weeks is just enough to get in six games an' a championship game. Four teams play each other on Tuesdays, the other four on Wednesdays, an' so on."

"Hang on," Wendy said. "Greenwoods Sequoyas? My brother Junior played on that when he was twelve and thirteen."

"Yeah, he's coachin'," Stan told her.

"Oh, man! I love my brother, but I gotta warn you guys, he cheats like the 1919 White Sox! Stan, you make sure he doesn't run in some ringers on you!"

"Wendy, ya can't cheat a cheater—I mean, yeah, good point, I'll watch out for it."

"Grunkle Stan," Dipper began, but his sister, acting as if she were hopped up on Smile Dip, excitedly interrupted him.

"Who are we? What's our team name?" Mabel asked, bouncing up and down.

"Welcome to the Mystery Shack Mystics, you guys!" Stan proclaimed proudly. From somewhere he produced a fluorescent green tee shirt with the Mystery Shack logo and the number 5 emblazoned on the back. "I promise ya, you won't regret it!"

"I regret it already," Dipper said.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 2: Positions**

At 2:00 Stan drove Mabel, Dipper, and Wendy—it was a slow day, and Soos said she could go along as assistant coach—to the middle-school athletic field. It had two baseball diamonds, scaled down for 11-13-year-olds, and Stan had reserved one for the Mystics tryouts for position. All of the other players seemed to have already arrived.

"Seriously?" Dipper asked as he climbed out of the Stanleymobile into 92-degree heat and blazing sunshine and surveyed the random group that passed for a team.

The kids milling around and goofing on the field included Grenda—that wasn't too bad, she was intimidating and strong, anyway—and Gorney—Dipper had thought he was only about eight, but either he was older than he looked or he was lying about his height. At the moment, Grenda was standing with her right arm crooked in a show-your-muscle pose, and Gorney was doing chin-ups on it.

Dipper saw Mabel's first crush of the previous summer standing near first base—Mabel had rigged the questionnaire she gave him—but Dipper didn't know his name. He was talking to a kid named Nicolas, who was about twelve and whom Dipper suspected of being related to Tambry, because they looked a little alike except for their hair. Nicolas had black hair and no purple highlights. Dipper and Mabel occasionally ran into him at the mall.

Doing pushups on the infield was Grunt, one of the tough kids that Grunkle Stan had tried hard to scare during the previous year's Summerween—he wore a headband over his bushy brown hair, along with a perpetual scowl, and looked a bit like a male version of Grenda.

Already decked out in a new-looking pine-tree cap was Ricky Chuzzley, whose little brother Charlie had been terrorized when Stan's hot-air balloon nearly nailed him and their mom. He was trying without success to do a handstand on the outfield grass past second base. Finally, two sort of puny kids that Dipper didn't recognize stood on home plate and the pitcher's mound, tossing a battered brown-stained baseball back and forth, barehanded.

Stan held a clipboard and yelled, "Mystics! Form up over here! Let me get you signed up on the list." He looked odd in the pine-tree trucker hat, but all the kids trotted over eagerly. Stan recognized most of them and jotted their names down, but he asked the two puny boys who they were. They turned out to be Chester O'Faley and Petey McLuser. Dipper rolled his eyes. _Those names are omens if I ever heard one!_

The tough kid, brown-haired and heavy-built, with a prominent gap in his teeth, said his name was Grunt.

"Grunt what?" Stan asked.

"None of your business!"

Stan frowned, then laughed. "I like your attitude, kid!"

The boy who had been puzzled by Mabel's date questionnaire said he was Barry Zinzer. Mabel immediately went to stand beside him, telling him, "You have a first and last name! _I_ have a first and last name! How weird is that?"

Dipper muttered to Wendy, "She tries too hard."

"I know, right?"

"Wait a minute," Dipper said, counting. "Hey, there are ten of us! I'm off the hook!"

"Nope, Fishbait," Stan said. "Here, hand these out and have everybody sign one and return it to you." He gave Dipper a sheaf of forms and a handful of cheap ballpoint pens.

"What are these?" Dipper asked.

"Waiver of liability," Stan said. "You an' Mabel, too, sign one each. Chop-chop! Hey, don't read 'em, sign 'em!"

Everyone did, except for Wendy, who wrote "No Way" instead of her name. Dipper gathered the forms up and brought them back to Stan, grumbling, "I don't see why you need me when you have nine other players here."

Stan didn't even look at him as he took the papers. "It's simple. We gotta have an extra man to send in in case there's an injury or the pitcher gets tired. Okay, you guys—and ladies—"

Grenda laughed girlishly. "Oh, Mr. Pines! You have such nice manners!"

"Yeah, can it," Stan told her. "Now hold up your hands—wait until I tell you why, Gorney! How many of you have ever played Little Guys League baseball before? Hold up your hands if you have. Nobody? Not one of you? Jeeze Louise. OK, how many of you have played some kinda softball or baseball, even at school or just in the backyard? Everybody. Well, that's somethin'."

"How many of us have never successfully hit a ball?" Dipper asked, raising his hand.

Grunt hee-hawed at that and slapped Dipper on the back so hard that Dipper fell face-down in the grass. "I like this guy!" Grunt yelled. "He's a joker. That's gonna be your name, guy. Joker!"

"Yeah, he's great for morale," Stan growled, clipping the waivers to his clipboard.

Mabel helped Dipper to his feet and dusted him off. "You're OK," she told him.

"Get me to a hospital," he wheezed.

Grunt laughed again, but mercifully did not clap him on the back that time.

"OK, guys, important information!" Stan went on to explain the set-up: Games were either seven innings or ninety minutes long, whichever came first. If the time ran out, the game was official as long as five full innings had been played. If fewer than five had been played, whichever team was ahead was the unofficial winner. If it was a tie, as Stan said, "It's just a wash, like it never happened."

He went on with other points: In this age division, leading off base was allowed. "So's stealin'," Stan said. "If ya get somethin' worth more than a hundred bucks, stow it in the trunk of my car, and I'll fence it for ya for a twenty-five percent piece of the action. If it's just a base, good for you."

They went on to tryouts. First came batting: Wendy took the mound and threw easy pitches to the catcher, Dipper, who fumbled only about one out of every five. As it turned out, the team was lucky enough to have a couple who were very good with a bat. Grenda blasted two out of six clear over the four-foot-tall fence two hundred feet from home plate, got two solid, sizzling line drives to left field, and popped one easy-out fly, narrowly missing just one pitch.

Grunt got a home run on the first pitch, but Stan stopped him. "Ya can't _punch_ the ball, kid. Against the rules. Ya gotta use a bat."

"Wussy stuff," Grunt complained, but even with a bat he hit all six pitches, though he didn't get another homer. After the six pitches, he said, "Hey, I can switch hit. Wanna see me?"

Stan did, and batting left-handed, Grunt hit six more in a row, the longest a long fly into the outfield and right up against the fence.

Barry got four hits, Gorney three, and the others were at one and two each. Then it was Mabel's turn. "Don't go easy on me!" Mabel yelled to Wendy, pounding the bat on the plate.

Wendy shot her a pretty fast one, Mabel swung, and— _crack!—_ connected for a high fly ball that went over the fence but shaded foul by about two feet. She swung on the next pitch a little early, popped it back in a foul, and Dipper backed up three steps and to his complete surprise caught it. The next pitch was a skipping grounder—also foul, outside the first-base line—and the last three were all fouls, too, but uncatchable.

"Catch for me, Mabes," Wendy said. "Your turn, Dipper!"

Sighing, Dipper gave Mabel the catcher's mitt, mask, and chest protector. "Don't worry, Broseph," Mabel advised cheerfully. "Just keep your eye on the ball."

Well—he tried. The first pitch sailed right past him because he couldn't decide when to swing. "Come on," Mabel said. "You could've got a piece of that one."

"I've never hit a ball in my life," Dipper admitted. "I don't know how to judge when to swing!"

"This time I'll tell you when," Mabel said helpfully. She tossed the baseball back to Wendy.

"Here we go," Wendy said, winding up and pitching an easy one that headed right over the plate.

"Now!" Mabel said, and Dipper swung. The bat just grazed the ball enough to foul it straight back into Mabel's mitt. "Sorry, Dip. I timed it wrong. Let's do it again."

Wendy caught the ball and said, "'Kay, Dipper, try to keep your shoulders level and bring the bat right around even with them. You'll get the hang of this." She pitched again.

"Now!" Mabel said.

This time—wonder of wonders—he smacked the ball. It went past Wendy at knee level, then hit the ground and hopped over the second-to-third baseline. "Hey," Dipper said, feeling a silly grin spread all across his face.

"You got one," Wendy said as Gorney trotted out to retrieve the ball for her. "Congrats, man!"

"Not too shabby," Mabel told him. "Though it _was_ fairly shabby."

"Don't call it this time," Dipper said in a voice low enough for only Mabel to hear. "Let me see if I can do it myself."

"Okay."

The fourth pitch was level and true, and Dipper swung on it, a little too early. He popped a foul over to the left. "Gotta hold about one beat," Wendy advised.

The fifth one he hit, but he had swung too high, and he hammered it straight into the ground a foot in front of home plate. "Choke up on the bat a little," Mabel advised.

"OK. Uh—how do I do that?"

Mabel told him, and he raised his grip a little. The sixth time was the charm. He got a nice clean hit and made a line drive—although in a game the other team's shortstop probably would have nailed it, because it didn't have a lot of power behind it.

Grunkle Stan called them all around. "OK, OK, let's take some turns pitchin'."

Grenda was by far the best. She pitched to Wendy, who had an uncanny ability to nail nearly anything in the strike zone. Grunt demanded, "Why can't _she_ be on our team?"

"'Cause I'm too old, dude," Wendy told him.

"Who's to know?"

Wendy shrugged. "My older brother's coachin' one of the other teams. He prob'ly would."

Dipper knew he'd never make it as a pitcher. He had a hard time keeping his throws in the strike zone. Or close to the strike zone. But he wound up not being the catcher, either—Grunt was a lot better at that.

Then Wendy shagged flies for the others to catch. Dipper caught one or two, but he had a bad tendency to misjudge high fly balls and would run too far forward, then have to backpedal—never successfully—to try to snag them.

The others did pretty fair. Mabel showed a surprising ability to head off line drives, no matter how hard they were hit, and to take them right in her fielder's glove with a smack like a crack of thunder that sometimes knocked her a step backward.

Dipper more or less tied with Gorney as the least talented all-around, so they would alternate at right field, with the spare one being the utility player, ready to step in if needed.

For an hour and a half, they worked up a sweat in the hot sun. Then Stan called a rest, and they gathered in the shade of a spreading maple tree, where Stan had lugged a cooler filled with bottles of lemonade and water.

Everybody grabbed one, and they sat on the grass and took a rest at about 3:30. Then, a few minutes before 4:00, an extended green van pulled into the parking lot, and Wendy shaded her eyes and asked, "Is that my brother driving?"

"Yeah," Stan told her, looking around. "His team's gonna practice with ours for an hour or so."

Dipper stood up as the red-haired coach stepped from the driver's seat and his players poured out of the van.

The last one . . . _loomed_ out of the van.

"Oh, my gosh!" Dipper said, blinking.

One of the players for the Greenwoods Sequoyahs—well, he—or she—or maybe it—simply wasn't human.

— _To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 3: Ringers**

As the Sequoyahs trooped down the ramp from the parking lot to the athletic fields, Stan stalked over to meet Dan Corduroy, Junior, who wore his customary dark gray-blue ski cap, but a forest-green baseball jersey with white piping and a giant-redwood logo on the left side of his chest.

Dipper said to Wendy, "Huh. I thought the team name was like the Cherokee guy who designed their alphabet. The tree's spelled different."

"Like he would know how to spell anything," Wendy said. She yelled out, "Hey, Junior! Who's the horny guy?"

"What're you doin' here, Sis?" Junior asked in a rumbly voice. He still had thick red hair, shoulder-length, but he was a little bulkier than he'd been the year before, and his red mustache had become a bushy real thing in the past year, unlike the sketchy scattered whiskers that Dipper remembered.

"I'm assistant coach for the Mystics! Who's that big guy bringing up the rear? Ain't he a little old for the team?"

Junior looked over his shoulder. "He's Geetaur, an' he's only twelve!"

"Twelve feet tall, maybe," Stan said. "C'mon, Corduroy, Little Guys Baseball's for humans!"

"Ain't in the rules," Junior said. "Hey, Geetaur, c'mere."

The manotaur ambled over. He wasn't twelve feet tall, but he was close to six, about Wendy's height in fact, and taller than her older brother Junior. "Hi," he said, sounding surprisingly shy despite his bass voice.

Sounding a little less challenging, Stan asked, "OK, who are you and how old are you?"

"Uh. I'm Geetaur, son of Krobaur, and I live in the Man Cave, and—what was the other question?"

"Tell him how old you are," Junior said.

"Oh. I'm twelve years old. My birthday is the numptieth of Crow Squashing Moon. I was born in the Year of Scarce Maggots."

Stan cleaned out his right ear with a pinkie finger. "What?"

Dipper stepped forward. "Uh, I can clarify. In our calendar that would be at the end of September, and he was born in 2000. So he turned twelve last September, and right now he's going on thirteen."

"How'd you know about the calendar stuff, Dipper?" Stan asked.

"I studied what great-uncle Ford wrote about the manotaurs," Dipper said. "And, uh, I spent a couple days with them. Practicing, uh, you know, being manly." When Stan stared at him, he confessed, "I didn't do so great."

"Oh," Geetaur said, breaking into a grimace that was probably a bovine smile, "are you Dipper? Chutzpar said to tell you—" he balled his fists, threw his head back, opened his mouth, and bellowed "YEEEEAAAAGGGGHH!" A couple of birds fell from the sky, stunned.

Dipper shook his head to clear the ringing in his ears and said, "Sweet! Tell him I said 'hi,' too."

"Uh," Geetaur said with a nod. "And, uh, Mr. Stanley Pines? All the manotaurs want to thank you for taking some of them in during the Bad Times and for saving us for the evil cheese wedge."

"You're welcome, kid," Stan said with a sigh. "Dang it, Corduroy, we won't protest, and he can play. But I still think you're runnin' in a ringer on us."

"It's just we're gonna play to win," Junior said.

The two teams practiced together for an hour. Dipper saw that Geetaur, like him, got stuck out in right field. The young manotaur was speedy, but clumsy. However, he could hit. When he batted for the first time, Grenda sent in a whizzing fast ball.

Geetaur swung so hard the bat made the air sing, and— _smack_!—sent the ball soaring not just over the fence, but over the schoolhouse beyond. After a couple of seconds Dipper heard a faint crashing sound, the squeal of brakes, and then the distinct sound of a crash. And then a siren.

Junior called from the sidelines: "Remember to hold back! Now run around th' bases, like I showed you."

Geetaur ran right across the pitcher's mound—Grenda had to jump out of the way—to second base, then to first, then across to third, then to home again, then to third and back once more.

"Yeah," Junior said, "I'll have him practice that."

Dipper at least hit the ball during his first at bat, though it was a loopy little fly between second and third, and the shortstop easily fielded it for the out. His second turn was worse—one foul and then three straight strikes.

He came back to the "dugout"—just a space behind a low chain-link fence where they all sat on the ground—dejected.

Wendy rubbed his back. "Everybody strikes out now and then," she said. "Important thing's to try, man."

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Well—when we get back to the Shack, I'll have Mabel pitch to you and I'll study your technique and we'll work on it."

Grenda, batting clean-up, blasted a home run, sending Grunt, who'd reached third, and Mabel, at first, around to score three runs.

To everyone's surprise, Geetaur trotted in from right field as Grenda ran the bases and met her at home plate. The young manotaur awkwardly knelt—his knees really weren't built for it—and said, "O powerful and lovely maiden, I ask for permission to court you! We will have many fine calves!"

Grenda said, "Sorry, Bossy, I'm spoken for."

Geetaur rose, turned, and slogged back to his position, his shoulders sagging. Dipper said, "Poor guy. I kinda know how he feels."

"Yeah, I hate to be a heartbreaker, but Marius is so clingy!" Grenda growled, sitting beside him and slugging back some water from a plastic bottle.

"It had to be done," Mabel said, patting her friend on the shoulder.

"It's the curse of having so much charm," Grenda agreed. She belched.

They played four innings in all, and though they weren't keeping score, if they had been, it would have been tied at six each—though the Sequoyahs owed all but one run to Geetaur's homers.

Then the teams began to pack up to leave. Stan said, "Well, you guys ain't terrible. Our first game's day after tomorrow. Tomorrow morning, we meet to practice. Nine o'clock, you guys, because at ten-thirty, four other teams're gonna take over these two diamonds."

Four more vehicles had pulled in—some to pick up Mystics, and one school bus to let out another team. "Hey," Mabel said, "look at that! Who're those guys?"

"The Gobblewonkers," Stan said. "What the hey? They got two Gnomes?"

"Yeah, those are the guys I mean!" Mabel said.

"There's Jeff, too!" Dipper told them. He called out, "Hey, man, what gives?"

Jeff, coming down the ramp with the other two Gnomes, waved. "Oh, hey, Dipper! Mabel, you're looking lovely as always. Meet Fick and Finn. They don't speak much Human, but they're on the team here." He gestured. Fick was the one with the black beard, Finn the one with the blond one.

"O'Dele!" Stan yelled to a tall, thirty-something man who was coming down the ramp surrounded by nine kids already togged out in blue baseball jerseys with a GW logo. "C'mon, man! You recruited Gnomes?"

"Just two of them," Jimmy O'Dele said. "And since they're short, they count as one man. Finn stands on Fick's shoulders. Kind of amazing how they do that."

"You can say that again," Mabel murmured.

"Jeff, you aren't gonna build one of your giant, uh, Lego-type monsters, are you?" Dipper asked.

"No, of course not! That would be unfair! Just these two kids."

"Kids?" Wendy asked. "They have _beards_ , dude!"

"Well, technically they're sixty years old," Jeff admitted.

"Disqualified!" Stan bellowed.

"No, no, no," Jeff said, holding up his hands. "They—oh, hi, Stanley, nice to see you again. Thanks again for your part in saving Shmebulock when that toothy monster tried to eat him. Where was I? Oh, yes, see, Gnomes live to be 350 human years old, more or less. One Gnome year equals about five of yours. So if you divide sixty by five, you get, uh. A number."

"Twelve," Dipper said. Gnomes were not known for mathematical skills.

Jeff did a quick little dance step. "Bada-bim! Twelve! See, we're born with beards, the males and females alike. Gnomes don't start to crawl until they're about five Human years old. They don't go through puberty until they're sixty or seventy—that's when the females' beards fall out and the males start to go crazy when they see that happen."

"He's got a point," Mabel said. "I used to date some Gnomes, remember, Grunkle Stan?"

"Yeah, yeah, I give up," Stanley muttered. "C'mon, team."

They broke up in the parking lot after Stan had distributed the T-shirts and caps. "Nine o'clock sharp tomorrow, remember! Anybody need a ride? Call me if you do—there's an info card pinned to each shirt with my number. But call me before eight tomorrow morning, see?"

Wendy and Stan got into the front seat of the El Diablo. "Leave it to Junior to find a ringer," she said.

"Well—he's kinda legal," Mabel pointed out from the backseat. "Geetaur, I mean. An' he's sweet. He recognized Grenda's inner beauty."

"More likely her outer muscles," Dipper said. "You know, come to think of it, I never saw any female manotaurs."

"Womanotaurs!" Mabel said. "I'll bet they're beautiful!"

Wendy started to say, "Wonder if they got udders or great big—"

Stan cut her off: "Hey! Hey! Don't go there! You're just gonna get Dipper all excited!"

"Come on, guys," Dipper complained, scrunching down in the seat.

"Grunkle Stan," Mabel said, "How come the other teams have those neat jerseys and we just have T-shirts?"

"'Cause money don't grow on trees," Stan said as he started the engine.

"I'll bet I could whip some up," Mabel told him. "I can use the old sewing machine up in the attic. You get the fabric and notions, and I'll do the creative work!"

"Nah," Stan said.

"Hey, Stanley, please, man," Wendy said, "Mabes can do it! Let's go to Remley's Remnants out on Buck's Road. They got all sorts of fabric for cheap."

"I have some money," Dipper said.

"Jerseys! Jerseys! Jerseys!" chanted Mabel.

Stan sighed. "This means a lot to you, Pumpkin?"

"Heck, yeah!"

"Team morale, man," Wendy coaxed.

"We don't want the other teams to make us look cheap," Dipper pointed out.

"OK, OK, so shut up about it already," Stan said. "Where's this remnants place, Wendy?"

She guided him out of town and then along Buck's Road—well-named, because about every half-mile he had to brake to avoid curious deer that wandered out into his path—until they reached an enormous Quonset hut of a building with a faded sign out front.

Inside, the place was jammed with tables piled high with folded and crumpled fabrics. A middle-aged woman sat at a cash register up front and when they came in, she said, "Serve yourselves and I'll ring you up. Cash or credit card, no personal checks. Prices are marked on the cards. Sales tables are in the back."

Stan looked at her—she was a probably-dyed blonde, plump—not fat, but pleasingly proportioned—with a fresh, pretty face and not too much makeup. She sat behind the counter watching a TV show on a tablet. "Hi," Stan said. "Haven't seen you around."

"Hi yourself," she said. "I don't get into town much. I'm Sheila."

"Stanley Pines."

She smiled. "Oh, so you're the one I was warned to avoid!"

"What?" Stanley said. "Me? Hey, I'm mostly harmless."

"That's not what my brother says. He's Frankie Remley, he owns the place."

"Oh, right, Frankie's in the Lodge. I play poker with him now and then. Ya know, he never told me he had a beautiful sister. You really related to that bum?"

She laughed. "Yeah, he's kind of a bum, and I'm really his sister. I told you, I'm Sheila. Sheila Remley."

"So, not married, huh?"

"Not anymore," she said, holding up her ringless left hand. "Where'd you get those great big broad shoulders, Stanley Pines?"

"Same place you got those beautiful blue eyes, Sheila Remley," he said.

Dipper, who had lingered behind, muttered, "Oh, brother," and hurried back to where Wendy and Mabel were sorting through bolts and loose folds of fabric.

"Hey!" Wendy said, "Check it out! This is almost the same putrid green as the T-shirts, and it's wicking microfiber."

"What does that mean?" Dipper asked.

Mabel was feeling the texture. "Means it keeps you from getting all soggy with sweat," she said. "And it's on clearance sale! There's enough in this bolt to make at _least_ ten jerseys. Maybe even enough for one for Grunkle Stan and one for Wendy if I cut carefully."

"Still thirty-five bucks, though," Wendy said.

"Worth it!" Mabel declared. "You got that much on you, bro?"

"Yeah, actually I do."

"We'll take it!" Mabel picked up the bolt of cloth in a joyous embrace.

"There's notions over here," Wendy said, winding her way to rows of tables with boxes on them holding everything from thread and needles to zippers. "Maybe some Navy blue piping? And here are cards of buttons. Wow, these are cheap!"

"And here's some Navy blue iron-on fabric," Mabel said. "Ooh, and some gold fabric paint! Perfect!"

The girls walked out with all the supplies they needed. Dipper walked out with an empty wallet.

Stanley Pines walked out with Sheila Remley's telephone number.

So most of them were happy.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 4: Bench Warming**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Three games played now. In the first one, against the Velours, I struck out once and popped out once, and then Grunkle Stan put me on the bench and let Gorney go in. Grenda got one home run in the fourth inning, and Mabel got two base hits. In the end, we won 5-3. I suppose I should be happy about that._

 _Second game was against the Highland Sharks. They are all thirteen, about to be fourteen. In fact, one's birthday is the day after the championship game and the end of the season, and the rest are going to be fourteen by the end of September. And they are big guys. And they have a tough pitching staff—three pitchers altogether, really good at it, and they rotate. Anyway, I didn't get to play at all. We lost two to nothing._

 _Today's game, we played the Berford Possums—they actually have a live possum as a mascot, plus a guy I suspect of being a zombie. I thought that Mabel's first boyfriend was a zombie for a while, but I was wrong on that. Still, this guy doesn't run, he shuffles. Really fast, but still. And he's a light green. But if he is a zombie, he's at least a fresh one._

 _Anyway, Gorney opened in right field and even made a base hit, a single, in the sixth inning. I got to go in for the last inning. Grunt hit a single, and I did a sacrifice bunt that put him on second, though I got thrown out at first. Then Mabel got a single, and Grenda got a triple, scoring them both. We squeaked out a win, two to one._

 _This afternoon the Sequoyahs are playing the Sharks, over at the high school field, which has actual bleachers. They've both won two games and lost none. Stan wants me to show up and give him a report. I asked Wendy to go with me, but she said no, her brother would come over and hassle her for spying. Mabel didn't want to go. So I'll head over on my bike. Sitting in the bleachers won't be much different from sitting on our bench._

 _Oh, I notice that in previous entries I didn't mention the jerseys. Mabel actually did a good job. They look very professional. They're kind of a bright green with blue piping, with appliqués in Navy blue with gold edging: a big decorative M. On the back are our numbers and names. Mabel is_

 _1_

 _M PINES_

 _And I am_

 _10_

 _D PINES_

 _Last again._

* * *

Despite himself, Dipper found that he was rooting for the Sequoyahs. First, Wendy's brother was coaching, and that was sort of a link to Wendy, sad though it was. Second, Geetaur was on the team, and although they had ultimately rejected him, Dipper still had a few warm memories of the manotaurs.

In fact, one adult manotaur whom Dipper did not know was seated in the bleachers, all the way in the top, separated by two empty rows from the humans.

Dipper reflected that it was a little strange how the people of Gravity Falls had adapted to the supernatural creatures that now sometimes came right into town. Last year they had managed by denying the existence of eerie beings, aided by the efforts of the Blind Eye Society, which made them forget random encounters, but also made everyone in town a little crazy.

But Weirdmageddon had been a game changer. When Stan had pulled together anybody and anything he could find to resist Bill Cipher, including Gnomes, manotaurs, the Multibear, a disembodied but living wax head, and even—yechh—unicorns—he had also created a kind of bond. Now the citizens of Gravity Falls thought of such creatures as merely eccentric and differently-bodied people.

What the creatures thought of human beings wasn't very clear, but Gnomes would now and then come to a person's door and offer to do some exterminating—wood rats were a problem in the town—if the property owner would let them keep and eat the vermin. That was cheap enough to put a smile even on Grunkle Stan's face, and the little guys were good at the job, so they did some business.

Occasionally manotaurs would very shyly slip into a convenience store at slack times and buy jerky. They were addicted to the stuff. Such visits were rare, because usually they didn't have human money, but late at night they scavenged for dropped coins in places like the car wash and the vending areas of gas stations.

Dipper wondered if they had any idea at all of what jerky was made from. Probably not, he hoped.

He fleetingly thought it was sad that Krobaur, Geetaur's dad, seemed to feel uncomfortable sitting near humans, but he didn't want to seem pushy, so he didn't climb up to talk to the man-bull.

Dipper watched six innings of the game, making mental notes. The Sequoyahs played hard, but the Sharks had the edge on ability and style. They must have practiced extra-long and hard to get that good.

In the bottom of the sixth, the teams were tied at 3-3. The Sharks were up to bat, and one of them, the hulking catcher, pulled a high fly deep into right field, nearly a home run.

Geetaur trotted backwards, an awkward gait for a manotaur, and still had to make a desperate leap. He caught the ball with a loud _smack_! in his bare hand (manotaurs disdained gloves), but hit the fence. The chain link rattled chilly music, his left hoof got caught in the mesh about a foot off the ground, and he fell hard, though he kept his hand with the ball in it stretched up.

The out retired the side, but Geetaur didn't seem able to get up. Without thinking, Dipper went running out onto the field, along with Junior Corduroy and the umpire.

Dipper got there first. He knelt and asked, "Are you OK, man?"

"Hurt my leg." Geetaur grimaced. He was sweating profusely. "Did I do good?"

"Yeah, dude, you got the last out. OK if I feel your leg?"

"Don't' squeeze."

Dipper gripped the ankle lightly, not really knowing how a broken leg would feel. Nothing grated, though.

Junior Corduroy pushed him aside. "Leave my player alone."

"Hey, OK," Dipper said. "He needs to have that leg looked at."

Corduroy, who shared his dad's impressive strength, pulled Geetaur up to his feet. "Nah, he'll walk it off."

The umpire asked, "Is he OK to play?"

"Yeah," Junior said.

The audience gave some scattered applause as Junior helped Geetaur limp off the field. A couple of the Sharks booed him as he hobbled past them.

Dipper went back to the bleachers, hesitated, and then climbed up to the top. He sat near the manotaur. "Uh, hi. I'm Dipper Pines."

"Krobaur," the manotaur said. "Is my son lamed?"

"I don't think anything's broken. It's a sprain, probably. But he needs to see a doctor."

"Manotaurs don't see doctors," Krobaur said. "They get well. Or they die."

"He made a good catch," Dipper said.

"Manotaurs don't make bad catches."

"OK, then. I hope he gets well quick," Dipper told the manotaur, and then he went back down to the first row of bleachers. _Man, I even screw up when I just try to help people._

The first two Sequoyahs were put out rapidly, the first batter fanning three extraordinarily fast balls for strikes, one fouling to just outside the left line, a pop-up easily caught by the third baseman.

Then Geetaur limped haltingly to the plate. He was obviously in pain, but Junior sent him in to bat. The Shark pitcher sized him up and tried on another fast ball.

And Geetaur swung and swatted it right over the fence. He'd learned to control himself a little—it didn't vanish somewhere downtown.

Geetaur took two faltering steps along the base line and collapsed.

And somehow Dipper ran over to him again. Junior Corduroy was bending over him yelling, "Get up and run your bases! Walk them if you have to, but you gotta touch the bases!"

Geetaur tried to push himself up but couldn't take the weight on his ankle. Junior's face turned red.

"Hang on," Dipper said. The umpire had come up again. To him, Dipper said, "Dipper Pines is running for this injured man." He reached over and took Geetaur's huge cap, put it on his head, adjusted it backward so he could see where he was going, and took off before Junior could object.

The umpire yelled a repetition of what Dipper had told him, and to his surprise, the first baseman high-fived him.

The second baseman scowled, though, and the third baseman turned his back. Dipper crossed home plate. Junior and another two teammates had helped Geetaur over to their dugout, and Dipper returned the cap.

Junior grumbled, "You didn't have to do that. He's all right."

"I wanted to do it, OK?" Dipper snapped. He wanted to add, _Haven't you learned anything from your sister?_ but decided it was wiser to say nothing.

As he went back to the bleachers, a kindly-looking older man, bushy white hair and brushy white mustache, stopped him. "Is the player badly hurt?"

"I don't know," Dipper told him. "Bad sprain, I think. Maybe something's broken."

"I'll X-ray it for him," the man said, "if he doesn't mind seeing me. I'll give him a ride to the clinic in my van."

"Clinic? Are you a doctor?"

"Large-animal veterinarian," the man said. "Dr. Setter. I hope he won't be offended."

"I'll check with his dad."

Dipper made the climb to the top row. Krobaur hadn't even moved. Dipper explained the vet's offer.

"Is my boy in much pain?" Krobaur asked.

"Yeah. He is," Dipper said. "He's not showing it, but I can tell. He's hurting, man."

"Mmh. May I follow to this clinic?"

"Sure. You can probably ride along."

"Manotaurs do not ride in human vehicles." Krobaur paused. "Unless they have hurt their leg."

"Whatever, I'm sure it'll be fine."

"What did it mean when you put on his head cover and went around the field?"

"Uh, that was to make his home run official. I was a pinch-runner. That happens when a guy is hurt or for some reason can't run. Another guy runs for him."

"My son achieved something good?"

"Yeah, man! He hit a home run! He scored for his team."

"Then you acted honorably," Krobaur said. "I am satisfied."

 _What do you know. Somebody who knows less about baseball than I do!_

* * *

The Sequoyahs won the game by that single run, the final score 4-3. Afterward, Krobaur came down and helped Geetaur to the parking lot, where Dr. Setter had parked his white van. Geetaur was a little too large for the passenger seat, but he fit into the back. Dipper offered to ride along, and Geetaur said that would be good.

Setter didn't drive too fast, and Krobaur paced them, running just behind the van for about two miles. Setter's clinic—Dipper had never noticed it before—was a good way off the road on five or six acres, with a small barn and paddock and several outbuildings. He apologized but had Krobaur take his son to one of these, which had extra-large doors and an X-ray setup suitable for horses.

As he prepped for the imaging, Setter chatted to Dipper. He was surprised to learn that he was Stan's great-nephew. "Your uncle's a little bit of a character," Setter said. "No offense."

"That's OK," Dipper said. "In fact, that's about the nicest thing you could call him."

"Weren't you in the paper last year? Something about a giant bat?"

"Uh, yeah," Dipper said as the machines warmed up. "I sort of helped the sheriff on that one. And then I kinda banished a ghost from the Northwest mansion."

"Oh, you know the Northwests," Setter said in a flat tone. "I used to take care of their ponies. They've just got one now."

"Pacifica's Desperado," Dipper said. "I know."

"Well, they pay their vet bills, I'll say that for Mr. Northwest. Shame he had to sell the other five. I know the girl loved the one named Molly, but I guess Desperado was her favorite. There, we're ready."

Setter positioned Geetaur and took several X-rays. They didn't have to be developed, but showed up on a monitor screen. The vet studied them closely. "No breaks," he said. "That's a relief."

He examined the ankle and told Krobaur that Dipper was right—it was a bad sprain. "I'll put an elastic bandage on it," he said. "He should keep it elevated. If all goes well, he probably can play again on Monday."

"Uh—manotaurs don't have human money," Dipper said quietly to the vet. "And I don't have any with me. I'm sure my uncle will—"

"No charge," the vet said cheerfully. "The experience is its own reward. I've never treated a manotaur before. Now, where is this boy's home?"

When Krobaur explained just how far away the man-cave was, Setter shook his head. "That won't do. Too much of a strain, and too far. Tell you what, if you don't mind, I have empty stalls in the barn. Clean straw in there, and you can stay over the weekend with your son."

"I can bring you some food," Dipper said.

"Your offer—" Krobaur began in a cold voice.

"Daddy," Geetaur said, which really surprised Dipper.

Krobaur hesitated. "Your— _kind_ —offer is acceptable. My family is in your debt."

"Nonsense," the vet said. "I love baseball. Your son is a wonder to watch."

* * *

"You did _what?"_ Stan bellowed.

"I ran the bases for him and I helped him get to the doctor's. Uh, vet's," Dipper said.

Stan rolled his eyes. "Kid! He's on the team we gotta beat!"

"His dad was in the stands! I wasn't gonna let Junior maybe make him injure himself worse! And I wasn't gonna let him be humiliated!"

Stan sighed and settled down in his old TV chair. "Yeah, yeah, good enough—but think of the team next time, huh? Think of the game!"

Dipper didn't reply, but walked out of the Shack and out to the bonfire clearing. He took off his cap and threw it to the ground. Then he collapsed onto the log and sat with his head in his hands. It was twilight, usually a time of day he enjoyed.

Not today, though.

"Hey, Dip."

He looked up and gave Wendy a weak smile. She settled onto the log next to him. He muttered, "Grunkle Stan just makes me so— _augggh_!" he balled his fists and shook his head.

"You did the right thing, man. I'm proud of you." Wendy put her arm around him and pulled him close. "Straight up, man—did I pressure you too much into doin' this? I know you hate baseball."

Dipper shook his head. "No, it's OK. I sort of wanted to try it, so don't worry about pressuring me. I don't hate baseball, not really. I hate myself for being such a terrible player."

Wendy tightened her hug. "You're gettin' better. An' I think you're learnin' some good things about yourself, too. You, like, stood up to Junior. That's something special, man."

"Well—he shouldn't have leaned on Geetaur like that. Geetaur's actually a good kid, even though he's not a human kid."

Wendy leaned against him and sighed. "See, that's what I mean. Parents and uncles and like that take this so serious. But it's a _game_ , Dip. It's s'posed to be fun, win or lose, and it's s'posed to show you that playin' is the thing, not winnin'. But you shouldn't ever feel bad about it, or about yourself. Hey, if it bothers you so much that you wanna drop out, I won't yell."

Dipper thought about it. "No. I started it. I owe something to the team and to you and even to Grunkle Stan. I'm gonna see it through."

Wendy leaned over and picked up his cap. "You're a good kid yourself, Dipper Pines," she said as she put it on his head, tilted way back. She kissed him on the lips. Then she whispered, "And you're gonna be a good man."


	5. Chapter 5

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 5: Ups, Downs, and Sidewayses**

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Two more weeks, and then our birthday, and on Sunday, September 1, Mabel and I have to board the bus back to California and away from Gravity Falls and Wendy. I'm already feeling depressed._

 _At least Mabel's happy, though. First, she's kind of the third star of the team now, along with Grunt and Grenda. Mabel's developed foul-balling to an art. She can stand there and hit foul after foul after foul until the pitcher gets antsy or careless and walks her._

 _And she steals second base whenever she can—which is most of the time. I'm actually faster than she is, but she has a jackrabbit way of taking off, then reversing, then reversing again that always confuses the pitcher. She hasn't been thrown out yet._

 _With Grunt leading off and Grenda batting cleanup, the Mystics have scored in our first inning in every game since the third. Me, the other teams yell "Easy out!" when I step up to the plate. My batting average is not great._

 _But—once, anyhow—Grunt hit a triple, and next I hit a bouncing line drive that got scooped up and thrown to home, driving Grunt back to third, and I stepped on first base a second before the throw. I'd made a base hit! Then Mabel did her foul-ball magic and walked to first, sending me to second. And finally Grenda blasted a home run! Four runs scored in the top of the first!_

 _We won that game, too, against the Junior Sluggers, 8 to 1. The Sluggers, let's face it, are in the basement together with the Velours. Still, Grunkle Stan even said to me, "You did good, Dipper. Now do better!"_

 _Then when we played the Flint Ridge Dragons, I noticed Grunkle Ford off to the side with a large, boxy, camera-like thing. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was tracking the speed of the Dragons' pitcher, a kid they called Fireball Feeney. I don't know, the hatbox-sized contraption Grunkle Stan had didn't look like any radar speed gun I'd ever seen, but he tracked pitch after pitch._

 _I got sent in for Gorney in the fourth inning, and when I came up to bat, Fireball wound up as if he were going to shoot one across the plate at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, but it turned out to be a weird slow ball. Nobody could have missed it, and I swung and connected and sent a high fly ball over the fence just inside the left-field foul line! I hit a home run!_

 _I heard Wendy cheering like crazy as I ran the bases._

 _Only later did I take a peek inside the camera box as Grunkle Stan drove us back to the Shack. "Grunkle Stan!" I yelled. "A young eyebat? Seriously?"_

" _Huh," Mabel said. "Were you turning the ball to rock?"_

" _Nah, nah," Stan said. "When it's used on somethin' inanimate like a baseball, an eyebat's gaze just slows it way down, that's all."_

" _That's cheating!" I said._

" _Yeah? Well, tell that to the Sweeney kid. I happen to know for a fact that his old man spent five hundred bucks to buy a magic elbow and shoulder-joint ointment from the Hand Witch that gives him that speed. That ain't cheatin'? I'm just evening the odds, Dipper. Just evening the odds."_

" _But you can't keep a baby eyebat all cooped up in a box," Mabel said. "It'll die!"_

" _Relax, Sweetie. I'm takin' it back to Farmer Sprott this afternoon. Some of 'em hang out in the loft of his barn."_

 _Later I talked it over with Wendy. To my surprise, she kind of agreed with Stan. "Dude, I warned you that my brother would cheat. All the coaches in Gravity Falls do pretty much the same thing. And Stan just used the bat that one time, right?"_

" _Right."_

 _We had beaten the Dragons by one run._

" _So Fireball was cheatin' when he threw to everyone else."_

" _Yeah, but Grenda and Grunt both scored runs off him. With no cheating."_

" _Chalk it up to experience, Dipper," Wendy advised me. "And, hey, think about this—you proved you can hit a home run, right?"_

" _Yeah, I guess I did."_

 _So that's a thing, I guess._

 _Still—we've won five and lost one. We're tied for first in a threeway—us, the Sequoyahs, and the Gobblewonkers. They play each other on Wednesday, and then we play the winner on Friday for the championship._

 _Stan says we can take it all. I say I'll be glad when it's over._

 _Oh—big news, not related to baseball! Great-uncle Ford has written a paper on the Venus woodpecker trap tree! He's using my photos and we actually went out on Sunday afternoon the long way around (we had to avoid that big gulley that, Grunkle Stan says, nobody can survive crossing) and took some small core samples of the tree. Ford's done DNA analysis and everything, and he's sending the paper to the_ Journal of Zetetic Botany. _If it's accepted, the tree will be admitted to the scientific record as a new species._

 _And—this is the exciting part—Great-uncle Ford showed me the title page. He lists me as co-author and research assistant! Because he used my notes from this Journal! I asked him to change the by-line, though, because he used my real name. We compromised so now it's "By Stanford Pines, Ph.D., and M.D. Pines, research assistant." The M stands for my real name, of course, and the D is for Dipper!_

 _Mabel teased me about it being a nerd thing, but then she gave me a sibling hug and said, "You know what, brobro? As nerd things go, it's the best kind there is."_

 _And Wendy insisted on taking me out to eat as a reward. It would have been nicer, I guess, if Mabel and Barry hadn't tagged along—oh, Mabel and Barry have finally become an item, and she says he smooches even better than a leaf blower, which I admit worries me a little—but we had a good time anyway._

 _Sigh. I can't wait for Friday. One way or other, baseball will be over for the summer then._

* * *

Dipper and Wendy sat in the bleachers to watch the Wednesday game between the Sequoyahs and the Gobblewonkers. Her brother Junior strenuously argued with the umpire about the two Gnomes on the opposing team—each one in the stack of two swung a bat simultaneously, and despite their diminutive size, if a Gnome got a piece of a ball, he got a hit.

The ump argued back and pointed at Geetaur, whose leg had healed pretty much completely. "He's tellin' Junior that if he keeps the manotaur, the other team keeps the Gnomes," Wendy said confidently.

The ump won the argument. Junior stalked to his dugout, his face scarlet with anger. "Gonna be rough at dinner tonight if they lose," Wendy muttered. "I might get Soos to make me work late and sleep over at the Shack!"

"I guess it's pretty hard for you at home," Dipper said.

Wendy shrugged. "Ah, I'm used to it. If it's not Dad breakin' things by accident, it's my brothers tearin' down the place while they play their games. I mean, video games ain't s'posed to be a contact sport! At least Junior's gonna be workin' with Dad next fall."

"Carpentry?"

"Loggin'," Wendy said. "Up on the North River, with my cousin Steve. He'll be away from home all but weekends. That'll make it quieter for the rest of us." She stretched. "Anyhow, I'm grateful that Junior's in line to take over my dad's business one day. For a while it was gonna be me."

"Wow," Dipper said. "You'd be great at it."

"Nah, it'd drive me nuts," Wendy said with a chuckle as she leaned back, resting her elbows on the bleacher tier above theirs. "I mean, I can _do_ all that stuff, but it's work, y'know? _Hard_ work. And you're stuck out in the woods all day and when you come home in the evenings, you go out with your buddies and drink beer, and then next day you get up with a hangover and start it all over again. Not for me. I'd rather go on to college and maybe learn something that's kinda outdoorsy, but not related to choppin' down trees."

Down on the field, the umpire yelled, "Play ball!" and the game got underway.

It was an intense seven innings. The Gobblewonkers were first at bat, and the Gnomes drove in a run. The Sequoyahs went scoreless for two innings, then came back in the third when Geetaur hit a home run, tying it up. A huge cheer went up at that, and Dipper and Wendy turned to see where it came from.

The manotaurs had turned out in force this time: A dozen of them sat on the top row of the bleachers, apart from the humans below. One was Chutzpar, who waved at Dipper. He waved back.

Wendy said, "Remember last summer? Mabel called 'em 'cow monsters.'"

"Yeah, and thought they were adorable," Dipper said.

"Wonder what they thought of her?"

"Same as regular people," Dipper said. "They think she's weird. Nice, but weird."

The game went on, seesawing—one team would get one or two men on base, then would be retired for the inning, and the next would do the same thing. In the bottom of the seventh, though, the Sequoyahs managed to load the bases with two outs—and Geetaur came to bat again.

The opposing pitcher was good—he threw a wicked curve that caught the manotaur by surprise and was called as strike one. Then Geetaur cracked a bouncing foul. The pitcher changed up, and next time a ball flew by, far out of the strike zone. Geetaur didn't try to chase it.

"You know he's not gonna walk 'im," Wendy said.

The next pitch was a fastball, a little low but in the zone, and Geetaur slammed a sizzling line drive. The shortstop dived for it but was too slow. The left fielder scooped it on the second bounce and fired it in—

But the Sequoyah man slid into home in a cloud of brown dust, beating the ball by a heartbeat. "Safe!" the ump yelled—and the ballgame ended with the Sequoyahs the team to beat on Friday.

Dipper and Wendy climbed up the bleachers to where the manotaurs were standing, scratching, belching, and stretching. "Hi, Chutzpar," Dipper said.

Wendy added, "Hi. How's it hangin', man?"

Chutzpar beamed. "It hangs well, warrior woman!" He turned to the others. "Men! This is Wendy, who fought bravely against the cheese wedge devil!"

They clapped her on the back and shook her hand, without quite knocking her off her feet. "Hey, dudes, it was nothing," she said. "We had to take back the Falls, right?"

They cheered again, a sound like a John Wayne western when he gets the herd on the move for Abilene.

Chutzpar said, "A word with you, Destructor."

Wendy glanced at Dipper and mouthed, "Destructor?"

"Tell you later," he mumbled.

Chutzpar had gone to huddle with the other manotaurs. They finally made agreeing noises, and he turned back to Dipper. "Back in the man cave, Leaderaur disapproves of this, but we have already consulted and now confirm. Dipper Pines, you helped our young one in a time of need. That is the act of a man. We take back our refusal of last year. From now on, among the manotaurs, you are a man!"

They cheered. Then one of them—Beardy, Dipper thought—said, "Show us your chest hair!"

"Go on, dude," Wendy said, grinning.

Dipper sighed, but pulled up his shirt.

Beardy counted: "One, two, three, four, five, six, many! Welcome to manhood, Destructor! You may visit our man cave any time!"

"Uh—Leaderaur wouldn't object?"

"If he does, we will depose him!" Krobaur said, punching the concrete bleacher so hard that it developed spiderweb cracks. "But he will not object. He's a big old softy, really. And he is my father, and Geetaur is his grandson."

"OK, man," Dipper said. "Thanks very much, you guys. It means a lot to me. I'll, uh, see you in the cave some time."

The manotaurs actually cheered him as he and Wendy walked back down to the field, and Geetaur high-fived him on the way up. It was a little like being hand-slapped by King Kong.

"You gotta tell me that story, dude," Wendy said.

So he did, as she drove him back to the Shack. For some reason an unusual number of tourists had poured in, and she had to get to work right away, but he helped out. It was a couple of hours until they could catch their breath. Then Wendy said, "So the stuff you were tellin' me about, that was the same day my dad busted that stupid manliness tester in the diner, huh?"

"Yeah," Dipper admitted. "See, Mabel wanted pancakes, and—well—I wanted to win them for her, but mainly, I think—well, you and your dad were there and I saw you, and I _—_ I wanted to impress you."

"Dude, you _always_ find some way to impress me," Wendy said. "Hey, word of warning—don't let Mabes attack those chest hairs with tweezers."

"I think," Dipper said, "that only the first one in the crop is a scapbookportunity."


	6. Chapter 6

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 6: We Are the Champions?**

" _Good morning, Gravity Falls! It's a fine, clear morning here, plenty of sun and a temperature of 84, cooler after yesterday's rains, and we've got a great crowd in the high-school baseball bleachers! Looks like a great day for a ballgame, Randy!"_

" _Well, Biff, that's right. You know, these teams are just full of surprises. Today the Sequoyahs, who feature a very unusual right fielder and slugger, are up against the Mystics for the championship. The Mystics are unusual in that they have no real off-beat players, but they've got a great batting duo, Grenda Grendinator and Grunt Pryzyvilowich—"_

" _How do you spell that, Randy?"_

" _I don't, Biff."_

" _Well, that's fine. It's twenty after ten right now, the teams are on the field warming up, and in ten minutes we'll hear the umpire call 'Play Ball' and the Sequoyahs will meet the Mystics for the championship game! Meantime, Randy and I will recap the Little Guys season for you listeners. Hey, if you're in the Gravity Falls area, come on down! If not, keep your radio tuned here to KEEK for the play-by-play. Now a word from our sponsor, the Mattress King, where low prices rule. . .."_

* * *

Dipper, who'd trotted in from the field as Gorney went out to warm up, sat on the bench and said to Wendy, "Man, the stands are packed!"

It was true. It seemed that most of the town had turned out, and now a crowd that buzzed with excitement guzzled colas, munched peanuts and even—though it was early for that—chowed down on hot dogs. About two dozen manotaurs filled the top row nearly completely—they took up a lot of room—and they were noisily enjoying jerky. Jerky by the carload, from the look of it. Dipper fleetingly wonder how they afforded it.

"Oh, man," Wendy said, pulling her pine-tree cap lower to shade her eyes, "my dad's even here—look, there he is up with the manotaurs!"

"Oh, yeah!" Dipper spotted Manly Dan, whom at first he'd overlooked because he resembled a manotaur himself.

"Freaky!" Mabel said as she came in from the field and opened a bottle of water. "Dipper, I thought you told me Manly Dan was scared of them!"

"Maybe that's only when one's stampeding," Dipper said.

"Brobro, don't you need like a herd to have a stampede?"

"One manotaur _is_ a herd. Hey, look, he's joking around with Chutzpar and Pituitar! And they're sharing their jerky with him! That is weird!"

"Yeah," Wendy said. "He used to make fun of them—well, when they weren't around, I mean. Guess Weirdmageddon changed his attitude."

Barry came up, plopped down on the bench next to Mabel and draped his arm around Mabel's shoulders. Mabel reached up to hold the hand on her right shoulder and handed Barry the bottle of water. He chugged half of it and said confidently, "We're gonna slaughter 'em."

For Mabel's sake, Dipper tried to stave off the frown that kept wanting to twist his face. _Barry's a nice guy. And he and Mabel really get along. And she likes him a lot. And if he hurts her feelings, I'm punching him like he was a train ticket!_

From off to the side, Grunkle Stan rumbled, "Don't get cocky, kid!" OK, listen up: Line-up's the same as usual. Gorney goes into right field first, Dipper. I promise I'll let you in for at least three innings, though. You outfielders, back off when the manotaur kid comes to the plate. They're gonna be tryin' for the big hits this game." He looked at them all, and his scowl became a surprising smile. "Gang, you played good this season. I know I been rough on you sometimes, but time was short and you've proved you got heart. Win or lose, you guys and gals are OK. Go out there and play to win, but most of all—have fun!"

A few minutes later, the umpire gave the call to play ball, the Mystics took the field, and the Sequoyahs got ready to bat. Sitting between Stan and Wendy on the bench, Dipper said, "Uh, Grunkle Stan? That was nice, what you said."

"Yeah, man," Wendy agreed. "That's how it should be."

"Aw," Stan said, "I gotta admit I went into this with the idea of makin' a killing, bettin' on the games."

"Oh, no," Dipper groaned.

"Hey, shut your yap," Stan said. "I didn't bet a penny."

"'Cause it's wrong," Wendy said. "Proud of you, dude."

"Nah, it's not that," Stan said. "It's just I couldn't figure any way of cheatin' without gettin' caught. Anyways, when I gamble, I like somethin' solid in my hands, you know? Dice or cards or even roulette chips. Sports bettin' is a sucker's game."

"Hey, Wendy," Dipper said, nudging her, "is your dad trying to get your attention?"

Wendy looked sharply around. Up in the stands, Manly Dan was standing up. He pointed and beckoned. "Yeah, I think so." She sighed. "Better go see what he wants. Be right back."

The Mystics had taken their positions and tossed the ball around, and now Grenda was on the mound, leaning in, studying Gorney's signals, as the first Sequoyah batter stepped into the box. Actually, the signal didn't matter. Grenda threw what Grenda wanted to throw, regardless.

In quick order she zapped three fastballs right across the plate, and the first batter didn't get the hang of them. Three called strikes, the bat unswung. Dipper felt a little sorry for the hapless kid, who trudged off, shoulders slumping, to where Junior Corduroy waited with a frown that would curdle milk.

The second batter got to first base on a grounder. Geetaur was up to bat next. He tried for another fastball, slightly misjudged it, and sizzled a line drive to Barry, the left fielder, who caught it on the bounce, fired it to the second baseman, who tagged the runner out, and held Geetaur to a single. The manotaurs in the stands cheered wildly.

Wendy came back, looking troubled. She slipped beside Dipper and said, "Guys, Dad says that Junior's gone, like, crazy for winning this game. Last night he told Dad he's plannin' to have his guys hurt any Mystic they can—slide into them deliberately, even lose the bat an' hit them."

"Uh-huh," Stan said. "So we watch out for that."

"Hurt us?" Dipper asked. "Would they really do that?"

"Dunno," Wendy said grimly. "Depends on whether or not they're more afraid of getting' tossed out of the game or gettin' yelled at by my brother."

With two men out, Geetaur, whose run was a little awkward, was not a player to steal a base. The fourth batter popped up an easy fly ball, Mabel caught it for the third out, and the Sequoyahs were retired. The Mystics came trotting back to the dugout.

"Good catch, Sis," Dipper said.

"Why, thank you, Sir Dippingsauce!"

"Yeah, Mabel, you done good," Stan said. "Listen up, knuckleheads. I just got word that the Sequoyahs may be playin' dirty. Don't let 'em hurt you, you hear? I don't want any of you spiked on a slide or hit with a bat accidentally on purpose, know what I mean? Just be alert."

Grunt was first up to bat. The first pitch was uncomfortably inside, and he stepped away from it. The umpire called a ball. The next was on the other side of the zone, barely within limits, and he tipped a foul. Another close one next, nearly hitting him in the face. With a count of one and two, and a look of fury on his face, Grunt got back into position.

This time he hit the ball, but not with his full power. He'd pulled it to right field, and Geetaur charged in as the ball hit and bounced. He scooped it up and tossed to first, but Grunt barely beat the throw and was safe. From the Sequoyah dugout, Junior Corduroy yelled, " _Hustle_ , bullface, hustle!"

"Hey," Dipper said, "he tried his best!"

"Junior has, like, zero tolerance for just barely failing," Wendy muttered. "Gets that from Dad."

Grunt was leading off from first—dangerously far. "Uh-oh," Stan said. "Kid's mad. You don't play so good when you get mad."

Dipper was looking at Grunt and missed what happened next. He heard a gasp from the crowd, an angry "Son of a—hot Belgian waffle!" from Stan, and then Dipper realized that Gorney lay in the dirt of the batter's box.

Wendy, Dipper, and Stan all ran out. "What happened?" Dipper asked.

"That jerk Rudy beaned him," Wendy growled. "Gorney, you OK?"

The heavyset kid sat up, tears running down his dusty cheeks. The side of his face was red and swollen, but he nodded and, with Stan's help, got to his feet. "Take your base," the umpire said.

"Just a sec," Stan told him. "I wanna make sure my man's not bad hurt. Gorney, look at me. How many fingers?"

"Two," Gorney said, correctly, his voice tremulous but not sobbing. "I'm OK, coach, weawwy. Don't take me out."

"You sure?"

Two dirty tears dripped off his chin and onto his jersey, but Gorney nodded. Stan clapped him on the shoulder. "Ya got guts, Gorney. Take your base." As Gorney slowly trotted toward first, the crowd cheered him. Stan turned to the umpire. "Listen," he said, "tell the other coach for me—no more dirty play."

The umpire did call the Sequoyah pitcher and coach in for a conference. Watching them from the dugout, Wendy said, "Look at my brother. All innocent an' crap. An' the pitcher's tellin' the ump it was like totally an accident."

"Gorney's speech impediment came back," Dipper said.

"Guess he's kinda dazed," Wendy replied. "I'm gonna have a word with Junior after this game."

"Stay sharp when you go in, Dipper," Stan warned.

Mabel did her foul-ball thing until the frustrated pitcher walked her, filling the bases and giving Dipper a sense of déjà vu.

But then it fell apart. Grenda, visibly angry, tried too hard and went down swinging. The third-baseman, Ricky, popped out. And then after spooking the first baseman, Petey, with another near-miss pitch, the Sequoyah pitcher struck him out on the next three pitches. The inning ended scoreless for the Mystics.

Gorney's mom came to the dugout, where her son was holding an icepack to his face. He insisted that he was OK to play in such a strong voice that she smiled and ruffled his hair. "Be careful, then," she said.

"Tell _them_ that," Stan muttered under his breath.

* * *

 _You don't play so good when you're mad_.

Grenda's control deserted her. She still pitched with everything she had, but her judgment was off—and when the Sequoyahs suffered their third out fifteen minutes after coming in to play offense, they had scored three runs before retiring.

Stan called his team in for a quick word: "Look, it does nobody any good to get so upset you make mistakes, understand? It's a game, kids, even if the other side's playin' dirty. It's their shame, not yours. You get on top of that anger, hear me? You can do it. Now go play some clean ball. Show 'em how it's done."

After three innings and one more run for the Sequoyahs, Stan took Gorney, who now sported a black eye, out of the game. Stan's twin brother Stanford had showed up, and Stan told him, "The reason I called you, this kid took a hard pitch on the left side of his face. I want him checked out. His name's Gorney, and treat him right. He's a trouper."

Gorney's chubby face broke out into a smile like the sun coming from behind a storm cloud.

"I'll drive him to a doctor," Ford said.

"Yeah, you pay for it an' I'll pay you back. Here comes his mom. She'll want to go, too."

"I hope he's OK," Dipper said as Gorney, rather touchingly holding onto his mother's hand like a toddler, walked away with Ford.

"Eh, I'm pretty sure he is. Kids can take more of a wallop than most people think. Cheekbone doesn't feel broken, and he didn't lose or crack any teeth. Still, you want to be sure. At this point I just hope he survives Ford's drivin'."

"Dude," Wendy said, "why didn't you take Gorney out right after he got hit?"

"Give the kid his pride, Wendy," Stan said softly. "He toughed it out for two more innings. He'll always remember that."

The score now stood at four to nothing. Barry led off at bat this inning and managed a single. After him, Chester, the second baseman, struck out. Then Grunt, who had recovered some self-control, stepped up to the plate—and smacked the first pitch out of the park. The Mystics scored two runs, and Stan said, "We're back in the game."

Dipper's turn. He walked out to the familiar catcalls of the other team: "Easy out! Easy out!"

 _It doesn't matter. It's just a game. Play it the best you can, that's all they can ask of you._

His palms were sweaty, so he rubbed dirt on them, then choked up a little on the bat, as Wendy had advised. He stepped to the plate, and before he had even taken his stance—

" _Hunnhh_!" The pain flashed through him, shocking and sudden. The hard, unexpected pitch had caught Dipper on the left arm, on the biceps, and very nearly knocked him down. He dropped the bat and bent double, gasping and rubbing the sharp ache, and through a red mist of pain he saw Wendy and Stan running up.

The umpire leaned over. "Are you all right, son?"

"Yeah," Dipper said through clenched teeth, "but he did that on purpose. That's the second time!"

Wendy put her arm around him. "You OK, Dipper?"

"Just a bruise, I think," he said. He felt warm drops running down his cheeks. "Dang it, I'm crying."

"Involuntary reflex, Dip," Stan said, patting him on the back. "Nothin' to be ashamed of."

"Oh, Dipper!" Mabel. She hugged him tightly and mumbled into his shoulder, "I'm so sorry I talked you into playing this stupid game."

"Don't be. I'm not," Dipper said, gently pushing her away with his right hand. "I'm gonna be OK."

The umpire said, "Take your base."

Wendy quickly put in, "Dip, he just tossed the pitcher outa the game."

"Good," Dipper said, and he trotted down the baseline to first, sending Barry to second base.

The Sequoyah first baseman—the one who had high-fived him when he'd run the bases for Geetaur—muttered, "Sorry, man. Coach was really leanin' on Rudy."

"The pitcher?"

"Yeah. All of us, but really hard on Rudy."

Mabel was up to bat, and the new pitcher looked nervously over to the spot where his coach sat in the dugout. A fiercely scowling Junior hesitated, then shook his head.

Dipper, his arm throbbing, thought, _Good. Because if that pitcher had hit Mabel, one of us was gonna die._

The outfield must have relaxed now that the foul-ball queen was up. So when, on the first pitch, she slammed a fly ball deep into left field, they all seemed taken by surprise, and the left fielder just couldn't get under it in time. Mabel got a double out of it, Barry scored, Dipper put on the fastest burst of speed he could muster, rounded third, and slid into home plate—successfully—and the score was even at four to four.

Biting back the pain that still came in waves, Dipper stood up from home plate, covered with dust, and gave his sister a big grin and a thumbs-up.

Their luck ran out there, though, and the next two men struck out.

* * *

" _Well, Biff, bottom of the seventh, two outs for the Mystics, nobody on, and the score is still tied at four-all. It's been a hard-fought game."_

" _That it has, Randy, with a few surprises. The twins on the Mystics team, Mabel and Dipper Pines, have really impressed the fans. Mabel has had two base hits and was walked once, and Dipper got a hit of his own, just his fifth in this entire series, but after his coach had him trade positions because of his earlier injury and come in as catcher, he made three spectacular catches and put a man out at home on a long throw from Barry Zinzer in left field, despite a bruised left arm that still looks like it's giving him a little bit of trouble. Mystics pitcher Grenda Grendinator has held up remarkably well and still has a lot of pepper."_

"' _Scuse me, Biff, that's the third strike, and the Mystics are out of it without scoring. Sequoyahs coming up in the overtime eighth inning next. Most of them look pretty tired. There'll be a seventh-inning stretch—hey, somebody's put on the music. Let's listen to this great crowd singing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game.' Wait, is that thunder?"_

" _No, I believe that's the manotaurs singing, Randy."_

* * *

It happened in the bottom of the tenth inning. Dipper, up to bat, surprised everyone by signaling to Grenda in the dugout. "Bring everybody," he called to her, and then he yelled, "Sequoyahs! Come on in and let's talk." The umpire asked what was going on. Dipper ignored him and beckoned to the Sequoyah players, who were walking in from the field. "Come on, we have to settle this."

Mystics and Sequoyahs all clustered around home plate. When they were all there, Dipper asked, "You guys had enough?"

Van Jones, the new Sequoyah pitcher, nodded, sweat pouring off his face. "I'm tired out."

"So are we. What say we call the game?" Dipper asked. "Leave it at a tie?"

"I'd go for that," Grenda said.

Beside her, Grunt began, "Aw—" but broke off and went pale when she reached behind his back and wrenched his arm up behind him. In a soprano voice, he said, "fine with me!"

"What about the coach?" one of the Sequoyahs asked uneasily, glancing toward their dugout.

Wendy had come out. "Our coach is holdin' him back right now. He's my brother," she said. "Leave him to me."

Grenda and Jones turned to the umpire. "We're done," Grenda said.

"Yeah," Jones added. "What she said. Leave it at a tie."

"You sure?" the umpire asked.

The teams noisily agreed.

So the ump called it. And on the field, the Mystics shook hands with the Sequoyahs, Geetaur hugged Grenda and then hugged Dipper and Mabel and Barry—all three at once. A fuming Junior Corduroy threw his cap on the ground and burst past Stan and out of the dugout, but his dad collared him and dragged him away—

And the crowd cheered and cheered, and the manotaurs flooded down from the stands and lifted both teams on their shoulders—one player to each shoulder, two to a manotaur, Sequoyah on one side, Mystic on the other—and paraded them around the bases.

When that was over, Barry kissed Mabel, right in public, right on the mouth.

Dipper didn't object. He couldn't, because Wendy was kissing him.

And everyone stood up in the stands and still cheered.

It was a totally weird day.

In other words, pretty normal for Gravity Falls.


	7. Chapter 7

**The Noise of Summer**

 **Chapter 7: Trophies**

Soos, who because of the schedule and his job as Mr. Mystery had seen only one of the Mystics games, enthusiastically opened up the Mystery Shack for the Saturday afternoon picnic-banquet celebrating the season's end and the two champion teams of the Little Guys League.

Wendy, Mabel, and Dipper helped set up, of course, and both Grunkles showed up to supervise. As they sat on the back porch sofa, watching the kids string streamers and pennants, Ford said, "You know, Stanley, I've been thinking. Gravity Falls really needs a doctor of its own. Oh, it's such a small town that a hospital would be unnecessary, but surely it could do with a clinic."

"Yeah," Stan said. "Good point. Then we wouldn't have to drive half an hour when a kid gets conked in the noggin or stung by a butterfly or some crazy thing. But—I got a date with Sheila startin' tomorrow. She's never been to Vegas, can ya believe it? So why'nt we talk when I get back on Tuesday?"

"Because you'll come back angry after losing a lot of money. You know you never do well when I'm not there to help you with the odds!"

"So tag along. Sheila'll find a friend for you."

"I wouldn't think of—uh, wait, what? You mean a lady friend?"

Stan guffawed. "Yeah, dum-dum! Unless—"

Ford held up a six-fingered hand. "No, no, I'd prefer a lady—I mean—well, it would have to be a woman. I mean, if I decide to go. Maybe. But seriously, Stanley, let's think about a clinic for Gravity Falls."

Stan sighed. "OK. What are you thinkin' for the site?"

Ford shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Was there ever a clinic in town?"

"Nah, not that I know of. Never heard of one, anyways. But the old McCorkle house over on East Street's vacant. You ever been inside it?"

"No. I knew Mrs. McCorkle back when I first came to the Falls. Sort of an eccentric old lady, as I recall, about eighty years old."

"Yep. She passed on about five years after you went down the rabbit hole, and since she had no family, in her will she left her house to the town. They've never figured out anything they could do with it, though, so it's just empty."

Ford took off his glasses and polished them. "I sort of remember it. A fairly big place, as I recall."

"Yeah, I've walked through. It has a big front entrance hall that could be made into a reception area. There's a parlor off to the left of that that might be a doctor's office. Behind that's a dining room that could be an examination room, I suppose. On the other side of the house there are a couple more rooms, and down the hall in the back there's a weird narrow kitchen, an' at the end of the hall there's a bathroom and then what useta be a storage closet. Upstairs there are two more bathrooms and four bedrooms, could be patient rooms. Best of all—when Mrs. McCorkle got old, she had an elevator installed where the storage closet was, so sick people who might have to stay overnight wouldn't have to climb any stairs."

Ford nodded. "That sounds like it might work."

Stan stretched. "Yeah, an' I think the town would be glad to get some use out of the place. The trick would be attractin' a doctor, though. An' prob'ly two nurses, one for day, one for night. They'd have to be what you call special people. Ya gotta admit, this town is apt to have some pretty strange illnesses and injuries."

Mabel and Dipper came over for a cola—it was hotter on Saturday than it had been the day before—and after Dipper had taken them from the vending machine, Stan said, "Hey, guys, ya been workin' hard. Here, take ten bucks each for your trouble."

"Grunkle Stan!" Dipper said, staring at the wad of cash Stan had taken from his pocket. "You said you didn't bet on the games!"

"I didn't!" Stan replied with a grin. "But who do you think was sellin' all those hot dogs an' soft drinks? I cleared a couple thousand on concessions!"

"Oh, you old scapegrace!" Mabel said with a flap of her hand. "You always have an angle!"

"That's nothin', honey," Stan said. He took a little pouch from his shirt pocket and carefully emptied it into a plastic cup. Whatever was in it rattled. "Dipper, pick this up, real careful."

Dipper reached for the red cup and lifted it. "Hey!" he said. "This is heavy!"

"'Bout a pound," Stan said. He took the cup and shook some of its contents into his hand. "Know what these are?"

"Candy?" Mabel asked, craning to see.

"Even sweeter. Gold nuggets!"

Mabel's pupils widened. "Ooh! So—can you eat them?"

Stan laughed. "Not hardly, Pumpkin. The manotaurs pick these up in creek beds and places. They got no real use for them—they call 'em shiny rocks, and they make like teething rings for their babies from them. But they swapped me this many for a case of 144 packs of jerky!"

"You cheated them?" Dipper asked, outraged.

"Nah, I saw that one of the manotaurs had one of these on a leather thong around his neck an' offered him a dozen packs of jerky for it. Next day he came in with all these and said I could have 'em 'cause the other manotaurs wanted jerky, too, so he gave me these and I gave him the case. It was a fair trade."

Ford had a pocket calculator out. "If it's really a pound, it's worth close to $19,000.00!"

"Yep, an' me an' Sheila are gonna go first-class to Vegas an' gamble with about nine thousand of it. The rest of it, I'm savin'. You'll be glad to know that, Poindexter!"

Before Ford could reply, Wendy yelled from the yard: "Hey, Dip, come an' help Soos set up the DJ station!"

"I'm on it!" Dipper called back, and he hurried off.

"I meant to ask him about his arm," Ford said.

"It's very colorful," Mabel told him. "Purple with shades of pink and blue, and when you slug him on it, he yelps. But it's just a bruise. How's Gorney?"

"No bones broken," Ford said. "And no concussion. But he has an extraordinarily purple black eye of which he seems inordinately proud."

"Yeah, boys are like that," Mabel said, sitting on the edge of the porch and kicking her feet as she sipped her soda. "You should've seen him last year, when he was just ten and got eaten alive by a monster."

"What!"

Mabel shrugged. "He got better."

Stan said, "Hey, Pumpkin, your birthday's a week from today. What do ya want?"

With a sigh, Mabel said softly and sadly, "Most of all? I'd like to take Waddles home with me again. Only he's way too big now. But Soos and Melody are gonna take good care of him. I guess I'll see him again next summer."

"Or sooner," Stan said. "I checked out the school calendar for Piedmont, and you an' Dip have a nice long Christmas break. I been thinkin' it'll be easy to persuade your mom an' dad to let you spend a chunk of it in Gravity Falls."

Mabel jumped up and hugged him. "That would be so sweet! _That's_ what I want for my birthday!"

Stan's sneaky grin broadened. "An' if everything works out, Wendy says she wouldn't mind goin' down and drivin' you guys back to keep you from havin' that long bus trip."

Mabel gave a gurgling chuckle. "And _that's_ what Dipper wants!"

Ford said, "You know, last year you wrote and told your folks that you had two Grunkles. They still think that your guardian here is Stanford. We really ought to straighten that out sometime."

"I'm workin' on a cover story, Braniac," Stan said, releasing Mabel from his hug. "Give it time to ripen."

"Hey," Mabel said, "by the way, Wendy told me that her brother won't be able to make it to the banquet this afternoon. Their dad's sent him up to that logging camp. She said they had an urgent need of him up there."

"Well, I'll save a piece of cake for him," Stan growled. "Put it in the freezer for when he comes home to visit."

8888

The picnic featured burgers and hot dogs (the latter probably surplus from Grunkle Stan's concessions), plus chips, cookies, a few cakes provided by Lazy Susan, and the Pitt's Cola flowed like water. With pits in it. As everyone was sitting on the lawn and eating, Gorney strutted around showing off his black eye. "The doctor says I took it wike a man!" he told them all. "I'm not even twamatized!"

Somewhat to Dipper's surprise, Rudy, the pitcher who had hit both him and Gorney, showed up for the celebration. He hesitated a long time, but then he came over to Gorney. "Hey, man," he said hesitantly, "I'm sorry I beaned you. The coach told me to put you out of the game if I could, but—it was wrong. I shouldn'a done it, man, an'—well, I'm sorry, that's all. Here." He held out a handsome baseball glove. "It's really for the outfield, but I used it pitchin'. I bought it new for the series. I want you to have it, man. You deserve it."

Gorney's good eye lit up. "Weawwy?" He swallowed hard and carefully said, "Really?"

"Yeah," Rudy said. "Nobody'll ever want to play ball with me again, anyway."

Dipper had heard. "That's not true, Rudy. People forget and forgive."

Rudy shrugged. "I won't be eligible for Little Guys next year, anyhow. I'll be fourteen."

"Yeah, so will I. So, since we're getting all mature and junk, want to shake hands?"

"Yeah," Rudy said, and they did. "I apologize for bein' such a jerk, Dipper. Thanks, man."

"We all do stuff we feel sorry for," Dipper said. "Just move on, man. How do you like your new glove, Gorney?"

The eleven-year-old said, "It's gw—great!"

Stan presented little trophies—just plastic ones, but they had each players' name engraved on a small metal strip glued to the bases—to all the players, including Rudy. He had one for Wendy as assistant coach, too, and another for her brother, which she said she would accept on his behalf.

Manly Dan was looming around, repeatedly apologizing to the Mystics and telling the Sequoyahs that next year they'd have a whole different coach. He kept glancing at Wendy, who muttered, "Leave me out of this, Dad."

Owing to a scarcity of girls, they didn't dance, but Soos played some tunes and Mabel hauled out the old karaoke machine. She tried to lure Grunkle Stan into an encore performance of Love Patrol Alpha, but he waved her off. "Call me when there's zombies to sing to," he yelled from the porch. " _That's_ a real head-bangin' audience!"

8888

Later in the afternoon, Mabel wandered off with Barry. They wound up sitting on the log in the bonfire clearing and smooching a little. He said, "So, I guess you go back home next week, huh?"

"Week from tomorrow," she said. "Uh, Barry—this has all been real nice."

"Yeah, I think so, too," he said, "but—"

"But what?"

He shrugged. "I dunno."

Mabel held his hand. "I think I know. We're gonna be hundreds of miles apart, we're both gonna be in high school, we have our own friends, so it's like, yikes. Barry—it's cool. We're gonna date other people. No hard feelings either way."

Barry huffed out a long-held breath. "I'm so glad to hear you say that, Mabel! I mean, I really like you a lot and all, and it's so much fun hangin' out with you, but—"

"No zing," Mabel said with a little smile.

"Yeah, I guess. Fun, but no zing. But—you _will_ be back next summer?"

"You can count on it."

"Well—see you then?"

"Of course! We're smooch buddies!" And they sealed it with a kiss.

8888

And on a path through the forest not so far away, Dipper said, "I can't believe that summer's almost over."

Wendy, walking beside him with her arm around his waist, said, "Yeah, it kinda went fast, didn't it?"

"So . . . are we good on the pact?"

Laughing, she shouldered him, making him stagger a little. "You know it, dweeb! Hey, I got a spy, man. Mabel will let me know if you start gettin' serious about any of those high-school chicks! If you do, I'm gonna show up and, like, kidnap you away from them! And believe me, I'm not gonna start gettin' serious 'bout any boy in my class. Maybe later sometime I'll tell you exactly why, but I got my reasons. Just trust me."

"You know, I do?" Dipper said. "I'll always trust you and Mabel. And sometimes great-uncle Ford and occasionally Stan. And I don't even trust myself, so that's saying something."

"I'm gonna be sad, though," Wendy confessed. "Miss you like crazy."

"So am I. Text me at least once every day."

"Hey, you too. And call me if anything happens that's either bad or rad! Any time, man, day or night."

"For real?"

"Yeah, dude."

They came to a stop, forest all around them. Dipper turned to hug her. "If I manage to keep growing," he said, "next summer you won't have to bend over to do this." He reached for her face and gently pulled her in for a lingering kiss.

When it ended, he said, "Funny. I feel—all itchy."

Wendy laughed. "Don't be itchy, man!"

Dipper said, "We're still friends, right, Lumberjack Girl?"

"Besties, Big Dipper," she said solemnly. "Annnd, workin' to see if we can make it into somethin' more."

"I think," Dipper said, "we're kinda on the way."

She answered him the best way possible, with another kiss there, in the forest, with a blue afternoon sky overhead, golden sunlight in the treetops, and about half a dozen Gnomes hiding in the underbrush all around them and softly, but annoyingly, giggling.

The End


End file.
